15-18 Summary and Analysis

Abraham Lincoln:

Mencken is skeptical of the contemporary, seemingly unquestionable heroics of Abraham Lincoln. People have turned him into a "plaster saint" without human qualities. If he was such a saint, why did he wait until a politically favorable time to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. And why did this Proclamation only free specific slaves, and not all slaves? This is hardly the work of a messiah. And while Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is a sterling example of oratory power, it is only poetry, not logic. He speaks of Union soldiers fighting for freedom, but it was in fact the Confederate soldiers fighting for the right to self-govern the South. The Union was in fact fighting against self-determinism.

Lodge:

Mencken covers the Republican convention of 1920, over which Henry Cabot Lodge presides. Lodge is clearly above the bickering, tumultuous fray of the delegation; one...